How Did This Ancient Civilization Avoid War for 2,000 Years? Annalee Newitz, io9, June 24, 2014
Archaeologists have long wondered whether the Harappan civilization could actually have thrived for roughly 2,000 years without any major wars or leadership cults. Obviously people had conflicts, sometimes with deadly results — graves reveal ample skull injuries caused by blows to the head. But there is no evidence that any Harappan city was ever burned, besieged by an army, or taken over by force from within. Sifting through the archaeological layers of these cities, scientists find no layers of ash that would suggest the city had been burned down, and no signs of mass destruction. There are no enormous caches of weapons, and not even any art representing warfare.
How WW I, British Greed, and Oil Distorted Modern Iran, Farhad Malekafzali Informed Comment, June 24, 2014
When it comes to European role in shaping Middle East, the better-known story is what happened in the Arab parts of that region.
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Less known is how the War changed the direction of Iran’s history. Iran suffered the ravages of the war as Ottoman and Russian forces fought each other on its territory. An estimated quarter of the population in the northwestern parts of the country perished as result of war related famines. In the years immediately following the end of the War, British intervention was to also change the direction of Iran’s history.
The Important Role of Armed Resistance in the Black Civil Rights Movement, Clancy Sigal, AlterNet, June 22, 2014
Ever since slaves were imported to Jamestown in 1619, armed self defense was an authentic part of the African American experience. I don’t just mean well-known rebellions like Nat Turner’s, but ordinary day to day. Almost every household I ever visited in the south had a hidden shotgun or pistol under the bed. This contradicted MLK’s dominant peace-and-love message, his honestly-held outreach to whites, many of whom (like me) flocked to his Gandhian banner. Less publicly known is that wherever “Martin” traveled he was bodyguarded by men with guns. Indeed, his own Atlanta home was a discreet arsenal of weapons.
Even less public was the role of armed black women who for decades had to endure sexual and physical assaults by white southern cops and other thugs who, given immunity from prosecution, felt they could rape at will. Attending church services in Tuscaloosa, Selma or Montgomery, I was no longer surprised sitting next to a respectable black woman who opened her purse to fan herself revealing a modest little .22. Cobb cites the well-known story of Mama Dolly Raines in southwest Georgia (where I stayed with SNCC) sitting by her window with her shotgun to protect the Rev. Charles Sherrod, a passionate believer in nonviolence, who was staying with her.
